“Everyone does that when they are down on their luck,” he said. “I might begin as a super. But if I began as one I expect I should stay as one, for I haven’t an idea of acting. However, some people would say that is an advantage. Because if you can act, you may never get an engagement.”
He took to going to the theatre of an evening, and studying the various antics and grimaces of all the puppets in the different shows. Sometimes it amused him, — more often it bored him. But for a lonely and downhearted lad as he was, it was better to sit among human beings in the warmth and light with the sound of music about him than to be all alone in his cheap lodging, brooding on his miseries. One night he saw a very pretty little play performed, in which the heroine was a maiden lady who had made the mistake of loving where she was not loved. Something — a mere trifle of pathos, a touch of sentiment in one scene — suddenly recalled Miss Letty to his mind. Quite involuntarily, and almost as if his brain had taken to acting independently of himself, he began to retrace his life, and follow it backward step by step to his childhood’s days, till gradually, very gradually, small incidents and circumstances began to arrange themselves like the pieces of a puzzle, and he remembered a number of things he had long forgotten. Again he saw himself rambling down by the sea-shore, a solitary, sad little fellow, talking to “Rattling Jack;” again he saw Miss Letty’s house in Scotland; and the memory of the last walk he had taken with her there through the Pass of Achray came back to him as freshly as if it had only happened yesterday.
Though his eyes were fixed on the stage, he saw an entirely different picture to that which the actors were representing — a picture which had been blurred and blotted out from his mind for many years by the heavy mass of information which had been thrown at him to digest as best he might in the shortest possible time. This obscuration of mental faculty was beginning to clear like a thick fog away from the mirror of his brain, and with a strange pang of regret he recalled the gentle face, the soft voice, the sweet and kindly ways of the good woman who had loved him so much when a child. As soon as the play was ended he got up and went out with the rest, but lingered near the theatre door while the crowd of fashionable and unfashionable folk were hustling themselves and each other into cabs and carriages, watching each face as it passed by and wondering if by chance Miss Letty might be among them. Or if not, perhaps Major Desmond, to whom he would at once tell his miserable story, — the story of his disgrace at Sandhurst, which had not been so much his fault as that of a “superior” officer who had tempted him to drink and had laughed at him when drunk, himself escaping scot-free when the matter was inquired into and the unhappy boy whom he had led to ruin was expelled. Yes, it might be well to confide in Major Desmond, — he would do so, he resolved, the very next day. With a deep sigh he roused himself from his reverie, and moved away from the threshold of the corridor to the theatre where he had been standing, when suddenly his arm was touched timidly and a sweet, anxious voice said:
“I beg your pardon! — but would you mind — might I ask you — to find me a cab? I have missed my father in the crowd — I am all alone!”
He turned and looked at the speaker and was quite startled by the exquisite beauty of the face uplifted to his own. Such large, eloquent, dark eyes! — such beautiful, black, curly hair! — such an exquisite complexion! — a smile that fairly dazzled him! — and a figure of the most girlish and fairylike grace to crown and complete all these attractions! Hastily he raised his cap, and blushed hotly at the extreme honour he felt at being spoken to by such a beautiful woman.
“Do you mind?” murmured the fair one again. “I am afraid it is very dreadful of me to ask you; but papa must have taken the carriage; he must have thought I had gone home with some other friends who were here to-night. And I do feel so very nervous, — I have never been left alone anywhere.”
Boy started from his stupor of admiration into instant action.
“I’ll get you a cab directly — of course I will,” he said. “Just sit down here in the corridor — it’s very draughty though, I am afraid. Won’t you catch cold?”
“I have a warm cloak, thank you,” said the bewitching siren, smiling up at him. “Thank you so much!”
“A hansom or a four-wheeler?” asked Boy.
“Oh, anything! I am sorry to trouble you!”
Boy dashed off into the street. It never for a moment occurred to him that the young lady could just as well have asked the same attention from one of the stalwart policemen on guard near the theatre door, and that perhaps it would have been more in keeping with the proprieties if she had done so. He soon secured a hansom, the smart est and cleanest he could find, and ran back to the charming creature who had so confidingly thrown herself upon his protection.
“Oh, thank you! But won’t you come with me?” said the beautiful heroine of this dramatic incident. “Please do! Come home and see papa. He will be so glad!” Nothing could have been more winning than the innocent and child-like way in which she gave this invitation. She made it all the more irresistible by pressing her little, daintily gloved fingers on Boy’s arm, — a touch which thrilled him through and through.
“I shall be so frightened,” she went on, “in a cab all alone. Please see me home, if only to the door.”
“All right,” said Boy, resolutely, “I’ll come.”
He assisted her into the hansom with the greatest tenderness, and carefully tucked her pretty skirts about her tiny feet, — oh! what charming skirts, all soft and silken and frilled and rustling, like the leaves of fringed French poppies.
“What address?” he inquired.
She gave him a number and street near Sloane Square, and he, confiding the same to the cabman, sprang in beside her, and they rattled away together through the streets, Boy delighted with the adventure, and the pleasure of being chosen as the protector and cavalier of so fascinating a being as his companion.
“Isn’t this fun?” she said, her eyes sparkling like jewels in the light reflected from the cab lamps.
“I feel so safe now! You ought to know my name, I think. Shall I tell you?”
“If you don’t mind,” answered Boy, still troubled by a tendency to blush at his own temerity. “I should like to know it, that I might remember it — and you — always!”
This was a fairly good hit, and was promptly responded to on the part of the fair one by a modest droop of the head and tender side glance.
“How sweet of you to say — that!” she murmured; “but I am afraid you will soon forget. My name is Lenore de Gramont. I am the only daughter of a French nobleman, the Marquis de Gramont.”
Boy blushed more hotly than ever. What a position for him! Here he was, in a hansom cab, with the daughter of a French marquis! He did not know whether he ought to be proud or humiliated.
“Papa is a very clever man,” went on the charming Lenore, confidingly; “he has a beautiful castle in France, but he is so fond of England, — oh, so fond! He would rather live in quite little apartments in England than in a palace in France.”
“Really!” said Boy.
“Yes. And he is so found of Englishmen. He adores them! You are English?”
“Yes,” answered Boy. “My name is Robert D’Arcy-Muir. I am the only son of the Honourable James D’Arcy-Muir.”
“The Honourable?” queried Lenore, with a fascinating uplifting of her delicate eyebrows. “Ah, yes, that is one of your English distinctions — so grand and meaning so much! Our titles in France mean nothing!”
“I have been in France,” said Boy.
“Have you? Did you like it?”
“I was only at school there when a boy,” he replied. “The school was near the sea-coast in Brittany.”
“Ah, dear Brittany! So charming — so picturesque — so poetic!”
“‘Well I can’t say much about that,” said Boy. “I was there just for a year, — but I didn’t care about it. The boys were rather a bad lot.”
“It was perhaps a bad school,” sa
id the daughter of the marquis, with a little laugh. “Oh, you must not be too severe about my dear Brittany. Here we are. Do come in!”
Boy helped her out of the cab, and as she sprang lightly to the ground she looked up with tender entreaty in her eyes and repeated the words, “ Do come in!”
Boy hesitated, then paid the cabman and dismissed him.
“Do you think your father — the marquis,—” he stammered uneasily.
“He will be charmed!” said the captivating Lenore. “Come, I will take no denial. You must have supper with us — come!” And almost before he knew how it happened, Boy found himself in the highly decorated hall of a small flat, bowing to a stoutly built gentleman with a red face and a superabundance of moustache, whom Lenore introduced as —
“My father, the Marquis de Gramont.”
And while Boy made his bashful salute, father and daughter exchanged a profane wink, which, had their guileless guest observed it, would certainly have surprised him.
“Dear papa,” said Lenore then, in her pretty, caressing voice, “how could you leave me behind at the theatre in that cruel way? What were you thinking about? This is Mr. Robert D’Arcy-Muir, the son of the Honourable Mr. D’Arcy-Muir, who was good enough to get me a hansom and bring me home, and if he hadn’t been so kind to me, where do you suppose I should have been, you naughty papa!”
By this time the marquis appeared to understand and grasp the position.
“My dear, I am very sorry,” he said, in smooth, deep accents—” very sorry! I really thought you had gone home with our other friends. But you have been most fortunate in finding such a handsome and gallant cavalier to take care of you. You are very welcome, my boy,” he said, heartily, laying a fat hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Supper has just begun. Come in, sans cérémonie. Come and share our simple meal.”
He led the way; Lenore threw off her opera cloak, thereby showing her dazzling beauty to much greater advantage than before, and, slipping her bare, rounded arm through Boy’s with a little, coaxing pressure, she took him into a room of considerable size, where a light supper was laid out with a good deal of elegance, and where several other men were sitting, all rather red-faced, and with something of a free-and-easy air about them. Boy was introduced to the party as “the son of the Honourable James D’Arcy-Muir,” whereat he wondered a little, as he could not see what his parentage had to do with his present way of passing his evening. But he presently decided that as his host was a marquis, no doubt all the gentlemen with him were of the bluest blood and highest degree, and that therefore it was necessary to say who he was, in order that he might be known as a fit companion for such distinguished personages. Suppose they knew he was expelled from Sandhurst! The hot blood surged to the very tips of his ears as this thought crossed his mind, and he took his seat at table like one in a dream.
“Champagne, Mr. D’Arcy-Muir?” inquired the marquis, courteously, passing the bottle.
“Thanks!” And Boy, filling his glass, raised it to his lips and bowed low to the fair Lenore, sitting next to him, who, smiling, bowed in return. And after the little pause which generally follows the entry of a stranger at a feast, conversation began again and soon became argumentative and noisy. Politics and society were discussed, and several of the gentlemen present appeared, for gentlemen, to have some curious notions of honour.
“Oh, hang all that sort of rot,” said one, a man with a clean-shaven face and a physiognomy apparently got-up as a copy of Mr. Pinero’s. “Success is the only thing you need care about. Money, money, money! People don’t care a brass button whether you are honourable or not. Tradesmen are more civil to the aristocrats who run up long bills than to those who owe short ones. It’s all a matter of hard cash. Principle is an old card, long played out.”
“Did you see that new girl in the piece at the Harem Theatre last night?” said another. “Little idiot! She can’t act. She ought to be a charwoman.”
“Perhaps she cannot do charing,” suggested the marquis, nodding at his daughter, who at once replenished Boy’s glass. “It is a métier — it may require study.”
They all laughed.
“She’s an idiot, I say,” went on the former speaker. “She could make thousands if she would just let the actor-manager do as he likes with her—”
“Gentlemen,” interrupted the marquis, with a fierce twirl of his moustache, “I must beg you to remember that my daughter is present.”
Boy looked at him admiringly, and warmed to the fine spirit he exhibited. He, Boy, was rapidly getting indignant at the unmannerly way in which these eating and drinking men were eying the exquisite Lenore, — one man had actually wafted her a kiss from the other side of the table, and she had pretended not to see. But, of course, she had seen, and was no doubt hurt and disgusted. She must have been disgusted, — any sweet girl like that would feel outraged at such vulgar familiarity! Boy was growing more and more heated and excited as the time went on; he had eaten scarcely anything, but he had taken all the champagne given to him, and there was a buzzing in his head like the swarming of a hive of bees. At a sign from the marquis he got up unsteadily, and, accepting a cigarette, went with all the party into a side room, where Lenore drove him to still further desperation and infatuation by taking his cigarette from him, putting it for a moment between her own rosy lips, then lighting it and giving it back to him with a mischievous courtsey and smile that were enough to confuse a much wiser and clearer head than that of a young man only just turned twenty. Dimly he became aware of a card-table being pushed towards him, — dimly through the brain-fumes of smoke and champagne he heard his host, the Marquis de Gramont, asking him to play a game with them.
“What is it?” he demanded, thickly. “I am not clever at cards. Are you?” This with a stupid laugh and sentimental look at Lenore.
“Oh, no! I never play anything,” said the young lady, smiling sweetly. “I only look on. But I think baccarat is a very amusing game. Do play!”
Whereupon he sat down with the rest of the men, and was soon, under the guidance of the marquis, in the full heat and excitement of play. He did not know in the least what he was doing; he obeyed every hint from the marquis or from Lenore, who leaned over his shoulder caressingly and whispered now and then—” I would play that if I were you,” or “I would do that.” Everything was in a whirl with him, and he only came to his senses at last with a sharp shock when, at the conclusion of four or five games, the marquis asked courteously, —
“Would you care to go on any further, Mr. D’Arcy-Muir? Pray do not think me officious for reminding you that you have lost five hundred pounds already.” Boy started from his chair.
“What? Five hundred pounds! Nonsense! I thought we were playing for fun, — for sixpences, — for—”
“No, not exactly,” said the marquis, urbanely and with a slight smile. “You have been rather unlucky so far, — but if you wish to go on, it is possible you may win back what you have lost.”
But Boy still stood amazed, with a wild look in his eyes.
“Lost! Five hundred pounds! My God!” Then, rallying a little, he looked around him bewilderedly. “To whom do I owe this money?”
The other men laughed carelessly.
“Why, to the winners, old chappie,” said one. “The marquis” — with a slight, somewhat sarcastic emphasis on this title—” will tell you all about it. Don’t worry! — he’ll settle it all for you.”
“I shall be most happy to be of any service to Mr. D’Arcy-Muir,” said the marquis at once. “He has only to give me his note of hand that in ten days he will repay me, and the five hundred pounds is ready for him — even more, if he requires it.”
“Repay — five hundred pounds!” And Boy still stared about him in horror and fear. “But — I have not five hundred pence in all the world!”
The marquis smiled again and stroked his moustache.
“No? That is certainly unfortunate. But your father, the Honourable Mr. D’Arcy-Muir, will no dou
bt be answerable for you. This is a debt of honour, of course, — not a public matter, — but involving serious private disgrace if left unpaid. However, don’t distress yourself, my dear boy. I will accept your note of hand at fourteen days instead of ten!”
Boy was silent; his face was deadly pale; his eyes bloodshot. Then he suddenly walked close up to his smiling host and looked him full in the face.
“I understand,” he said, hoarsely. “I begin to realize what you are, — and what kind of trap I have fallen into! Very well, let it be as you say: pay these men what I owe to them — what you have made me lose to them — and I will give you my note of hand for the amount. And in fourteen days you shall be paid back — somehow!”
“Good!” And the marquis went at once to a writing-desk conveniently at hand and scrawled a few lines hastily, which Boy as hastily glanced at and signed with his name and address. “Thank you!” And the distinguished French nobleman shifted about a little and avoided with some uneasiness the steady glance of the young man’s eyes.
“Five hundred, — and I will charge you no interest for the loan. Will you play again?”
“Play again?” And Boy turned upon them all with such a tragedy of pain written on his face as for a moment awed even the callous gamesters, accustomed to ruin young men’s lives with as little compunction as they cracked their nuts after dinner. “No! Had I known better, I would not have played at all.” With a sudden, fierce movement he sprang towards the bewitching Lenore and seized her hands, while with a slight cry she tried to drag herself away from him. “You — you betrayed me into this! You brought me here! — you, with your beautiful face and beautiful eyes — you, whom I thought a good, innocent girl! — a good girl!” And he broke into a loud, harsh laugh, like the laugh of a madman. “God help me! I thought you were good!”
He flung her hands from him with a gesture of loathing and contempt, and then, with one look of miserable defiance at the practised villains who, seated round the card-table, were smoking leisurely and smiling as though they were listening to a very amusing play, turned and left the room.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 450